I’ve been sharing my struggle with breaking through a brick wall.
I finally found enough circumstantial evidence to prove who he was, but I had no definitive proof.
Not living in the area, I’d not been to check the records at the courthouse, although I probably should have. However, I wasn’t really hopeful of finding anything if I’m honest.
Well, I was wrong. Ancestry is constantly scanning and adding new material.
One day I’m running my search on Ancestry.com not really expecting anything new to appear.
I type in the name of his “theoretical” grandmother and up pops her will. I can’t believe it.
I begin to read through it and discover that she outlived her daughter and son-in-law. She names her living grandchildren by name. By name!
There he is—listed by name and now I have his full name—Ariovistus.
This is such an unusual name that I know without a doubt it was him.
For years, I searched for John Davis—which is like looking for a needle in a haystack. However, the information in the family Bible was CORRECT, but the information in his daughter’s obituary was WRONG.
I’d been using the wrong information for years. Yet, it was all I had to go on.
I did a search in the area of the obituary index at the local library and found Ario. So now I can’t wait to go and obtain his obituary. I’m planning a trip very soon. Again, this information wasn’t online a year or two ago.
While I urge searching more than just records online, this was one time when those records were very vital in breaking my brick wall.